ICE: Wrong-way driver in crash that killed Metro officer ordered to leave US in 2021

The wrong-way driver who killed a Las Vegas police officer in a head-on crash earlier this month was in the country illegally, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson.

An immigration judge in Texas judge issued a removal order against Fernando Jimenez-Jimenez three years ago, ICE said Monday.

Jimenez-Jimenez, 31, also died in the Dec. 12 crash when the Ford F150 he was driving south in the northbound lanes of Interstate 15 crashed head-on into a Toyota Corolla driven by Metropolitan Police Department officer Colton Pulsipher, 29, of Moapa.

Accident investigators reported finding several containers of alcohol and marijuana in the F150, according to the Nevada Highway Patrol. Results of toxicology reports are still pending.

Pulsipher was driving home from work when he was killed. A third motorist suffered substantial injuries and had to be flown from Moapa to University Medical Center in Las Vegas for treatment, according to the Nevada Highway Patrol.

According to Metro, Pulsipher was assigned to the department’s traffic bureau’s tourist safety division. Nonprofit Behind the Blue shared on a memorial page that Pulsipher leaves behind his wife, Ashlee, and their three children: Carlee, 5, Brett, 2, and Jonny, 11 months.

ICE said Jimenez-Jimenez was a Mexican citizen who had entered the U.S. in 2019 before being “returned to Mexico on an order of expedited removal,” an ICE spokesperson said.

He then applied for admission to the U.S. with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Brownsville, Texas, in January 2020 before an immigration judge ordered that he be deported in Dec. 2021, according to ICE.

Noncitizens are able to pursue relief from deportation until they have exhausted all due process and appeals, according to an ICE spokesperson. But once someone exhausts these options, they remain subject to a final order of removal from an immigration judge, and that order “must be carried out,” the spokesperson said.

Additional information on his immigration case was not immediately available.

‘Migrant crime’ a campaign issue

Illegal immigration — and “migrant crime” — was a cornerstone of President-elect Donald Trump’s winning re-election campaign in which he promised to shut the U.S.-Mexico border to decrease illegal crossings and conduct mass deportations in the U.S.

“This is another tragic example of the migrant crime wave caused by Biden’s open border,” wrote Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s incoming White House press secretary, in a statement about Pulsipher’s death and Jimenez-Jimenez’ immigration status. “President Trump believes one innocent life lost at the hands of an illegal immigrant is one too many.”

Estimates of the undocumented migrant population in the U.S. vary, but the federal government — in a report released earlier this year — said there were about 11 million residents who were in the country illegally in 2022.

A report commissioned by a division within the Department of Justice looked at figures of crimes involving undocumented suspects in Texas from 2012 to 2018.

“The study found that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes,” the National Institute of Justice said.

Researchers found “no evidence that the prevalence of undocumented immigrant crime has grown for any category… As with drug offenses, evidence suggests the share of property and traffic crimes committed by undocumented immigrants decreased or remained close to constant throughout the period,” the institute noted.

The DOJ picked Texas and used its department of public safety figures because law enforcement agencies in the state are required to log the legal status of people arrested.

It’s not clear how the incoming Trump administration will set out to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history.”

Gov. Joe Lombardo has been silent on the issue and his office said he was awaiting for Trump to finalize his immigration policies before further commenting.

Earlier this month, Lombardo and 25 other Republican governors signed a letter vowing to use “every tool at our disposal — whether through state law enforcement or the National Guard — to support President Trump in this vital mission,” the statement said.

His office did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the illegal status of Jimenez-Jimenez.

“President Trump was given a mandate by the American people to stop the invasion of illegal immigrants, secure the border, and deport dangerous criminals and terrorists that make our communities less safe,” Leavitt said. “He will deliver.”